Tyke
Tyke was a competitor in German Robot Wars. Although Tyke encountered various technical problems throughout its campaign, it was able to qualify for the Grand Final and finish in fourth place. Being a Dutch robot, Tyke was originally going to be entered in the second series of Dutch Robot Wars, but the team ran out of time and missed the entry date. Team captain Börge van Gurp also had a German passport, as his mother was from Germany, so the team entered Tyke in German Robot Wars as a filler robot instead, as the competition did not have enough German entrants. On the show the team was said to be from Celle, which was the city in which Börge's German grandparents lived. Design Tyke was a yellow wedge-shaped robot, with blue stripes, armed with static spikes. Driven by two wheels, the robot was invertible. Although Tyke was wedge-shaped, the spikes on the end of the wedge meant that Tyke would require its opponent to have a high ground clearance to get underneath. The robot's symmetrical shape would later be used by a robot from a fellow German series competing team, Reaper NP2. The team faced many issues while building Tyke, such as discovering that their drive motors did not provide enough power, and home-made speed controllers that failed to work. The robot was unfinished when the team left for England, and they only got it moving a few hours before the show, having picked up a new speed controller at the location. As such, it was untested, and the intended weapon, an axe/flipper arm, did not get built. Robot History German Series At the beginning of the fight, Tyke reversed a little but was immobilised after Son of Armageddon rammed it into the arena side wall and was lifted a little and attacked by Growler. Tyke was eventually tossed around some more and then pitted by Son of Armageddon; however, it was fortunately spared from elimination by Thorgrim, who had not moved at all, and had been counted out seconds before Tyke had been pitted. The judges ruled that Thorgrim had been immobilised first, and thus Tyke could progress to the next round. Tyke did rather better in its second battle against Golem. Tyke began the battle by being shoved around by Golem; however, Tyke quickly fought back, and not long after that, Golem broke down. Tyke remained out of the way whilst Mr. Psycho and Shunt attacked its defeated opponent, and eventually Golem was pitted, securing Tyke's place in the Grand Final. In its Grand Final match, Tyke was pitched against Tsunami. In the early part of the battle, Tyke was flipped over again and again by its opponent; however, Tsunami began to smoke midway through the battle. Unfortunately for Tyke, this did not seem to affect Tsunami, which continued to attack Tyke until it broke down. Tyke was counted out by the Refbot, thrown by the floor flipper, and eventually pitted by Growler, eliminating it from the competition. Tyke's final appearance was in the Third Place playoff against Son of Armageddon. Tyke was immediately flipped over, and then spent a large amount of the fight running away from its opponent. Eventually caught, Tyke was pinned up against the arena wall, but was freed by Refbot. Tyke then opted to press the pit release button, and attempt to push Son of Armageddon in, but Son of Armageddon launched an attack of its own, pitting Tyke. As a result, Tyke was placed fourth overall for the series. Results |} Wins/Losses *Wins: 2 *Losses: 2 Series Record Outside Robot Wars After Robot Wars, the team, now going by the name Team Spike, built a robot named Spike (a box shape with a spiked axe, hence the name), which participated in the Annihilator in the 2006 Roaming Robots UK Championship, finishing runner-up to Dantomkia. Trivia *Tyke is one of four Grand Finalists to have an even win/loss ratio, alongside Bodyhammer, Rosie the Riveter and The Revolutionist. External Links *Team Vangudehoo website (archived) Category:Dutch Robots Category:German Series competitors Category:German Finalists Category:Invertible Robots Category:Robots with an equal amount of Wins and Losses Category:Robot Wars Fourth Place Category:Robots with cameo appearances in Series 6